Sarah Hussein Palin will not be running for president

By Michael J.W. Stickings

On Fox News with her pal/mouthpiece Greta Van Susteren on Wednesday, Sarah Palin said that she'd run for president in 2012 "if nobody else were to step up." She said she would do it "in the name of service to the public."

This, of course, is complete bullshit. She wouldn't do it out of a sense of public service but out of a sense of egomaniacal self-interest that is only magnified in the partisan ideological bubble she inhabits.

But here's the thing: She isn't going to do it.

Like Newt Gingrich, but more so, she keeps herself at maximum relevance by offering herself as a perennially prospective presidential candidate. Which is to say, she'll keep talking about running, and encouraging others to talk her up, and basking in the glow of pleas to run, without ever actually committing to anything -- without ever actually throwing her hat into the ring.

Because, let's face it, throwing her hat into the ring would be the end of her. She'd either lose the nomination or get crushed in the general election. Sure, there's a possibility she could win, what with the GOP becoming the Tea Party party and the economy struggling and voters susceptible to Republican propaganda and media-propelled Republican narratives, but even in her delusionally self-aggrandizing state she -- or anyone close to her who appreciates reality for what is is -- must know that her chances would be slim.

Much better to remain a major figure in the party and within conservatism generally, spewing her nonsense via Facebook and at her safe haven of Fox News, enhancing her political celebrity and reeling in the dough. And you've got to know that for this Wasilla hick, money is what it's (almost) all about.

Were she to run, and likely lose, her celebrity balloon would be punctured, the air let out of her ticket to fame and fortune. She'd be probed and exposed much more than she was in '08, when she embarrassed herself as much as anything, and I'm sure she doesn't want to go through that -- surely there are things in her closet that would knock her off her pedestal.

Of course, it's possible she'll run. Given how she's surrounded herself with sycophants, there's no telling what she thinks of herself other than to assume that she thinks so highly of herself as to think that no one in America is more qualified to be president. But, again, I suspect she won't.

Others will step up, after all: Romney, Huckabee, Pawlenty, to name but three of the better-known. And so she'll "serve" the public not by running but by trying to be kingmaker, issuing a decisive endorsement as a cult of celebrity in the Republican Party.

Meanwhile, she'll keep popping up all over the place, but mostly on Facebook and Fox News, places where she isn't challenged and can maintain the illusion of "Sarah Palin," mover and shaker, places where, to friendly hosts and audiences, she can hurl not just her usual nonsense but all the self-righteous vitriol she can muster -- where she can go on the attack against her various self-defined enemies, for she is nothing if not a bitter and resentful woman behind the smile and the wink and the aw-shucks affectations

And the money will keep pouring in along with the right-wing adulation as she tosses red meat to the faithful. It's what she does best -- like dropping the H-bomb (Hussein) to reinforce the Obama-is-a-Muslim myth so popular among her followers -- and it's what keeps her where she is.

Don't think for a second she's about to give all that up.